A first piloted launch is planned in 2018

Vostochny spaceport construction site

UGLEGORSK, April 16. /ITAR-TASS/. The first launching pad of spaceport Vostochny will be mounted on May 15, the chief of this construction project and the head of Russian special construction agency’s construction and engineering company Spetsstroytekhnologii, Sergey Makarov, said on Wednesday. Mounting of an integration house for spacecraft and rockets is planned by this deadline.

Spaceport Vostochny has been built in Russian far eastern Amur region near the settlement of Uglegorsk since 2012. Russian space agency Roscosmos plans that the first launch from a new launching site is due to be made in 2015 and a first piloted launch is planned in 2018. The meeting which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin held in this settlement was devoted to quicker works at a new Russian cosmodrome.

“The number of workers will be increased manifold at the spaceport regardless natural and weather conditions,” the deputy prime minister said.

A second work shift is about to be introduced, while builders work only in the daytime now. Meanwhile, a programme of universities involved in the space project is being developed in addition. This factor will permit to heighten interest of young specialists in this mega-project and will give an opportunity to involve qualified personnel in work. Rogozin pledged at a meeting with students of South Ural Federal University that construction teams of students would be engaged in this construction project.

Rogozin noted that special meetings devoted to the space centre’s construction would be held in the government monthly.